Stephanie, hon, you are NOT SELFISH. At all. You've got significant emotional stressors in your life, and those are legit and causing you pain, and we're the best place I know to vent about that kind of stuff and get some comfort. Don't apologize -- we bring {{{{ }}}}

Stephanie, you and your family deserves to be treated nice, and not just for a day or a week. You, as mentioned, are not selfish.

Well, my eyelid is worse. Not only is it itchy and bumpy, it's now swollen so I can't open it all the way. I think I'll be visiting Urgent Care this morning.

Sitting in a waiting room typing up HUD regs while trying not to claw at my eyelid? Was not on my agenda for this trip.

And in not me news, Stephanie, you are super awesome and most definitely deserve to be adored as we adore you and treated with the utmost kindness.

I wonder who Schulberg had in mind. Although you'd think it was Beck, more or less

I've never seen that movie. But a number of self-proclaimed prophets, rabble rousers, what have you, were able to gain an audience during the Depression years of the 1930s. Father Charles Coughlin (a genuine priest) may have been the best known, but he was hardly the only one.

so much sickness and assorted other nasties. ~ma to everyone who needs it!

I have resolved to try to actually post more often. (I was sending lurker-ma before.)

CPAPs are meant to be fantastic and make a huge difference.

As far as I can see the only bad thing is flying with them. Just know you're going to be searched and be grateful you aren't Arab-lookin'.

It was odd. I brought mine, sans humidifier, to the Seattle F2F in my bag, and they never bothered opening my bag in Boston on the way out. On the way back, there was a whole rigamarole, and I got pulled to the side and everything checked carefully. Odd, given everything 911-related, I would have expected security in Boston to be the one to be more intense.

I do agree that mine has been a god send, at least on the early waking front. However, I find it a complete annoyance if I'm having trouble getting to sleep initially, and in those cases usually have to at least fall asleep once without it (I then will put it on if wake up in the middle of the night), or risk staring at the ceiling all night.

You could be right, Fred Pete.

But a number of self-proclaimed prophets, rabble rousers, what have you, were able to gain an audience during the Depression years of the 1930s.

And basically we're in a depression now. Nobody's using that word, because if they do, it will make things worse (group psychology is a huge factor in economics), but while we're not getting Dust-Bowl photos, we've definitely got fertile ground for the rabble rousers.

And, not to go all Godwin, but the global Depression of the 1930s gave the National Socialist German Workers' Party a strong enough foothold that Hitler was Chancellor before the decade was out. NSDAP and Hitler employed the methodology of the Big Lie, defined in Mein Kampf as an untruth so colossal that "no one would believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

The GOP has been doing this for years, but the Tea Party has taken it to a new level. Whoever writes Sarah Palin's tweets is a genius at it.